Tara Coughlin, 33, for the past four years has represented Ugandans who were injured or sickened working at U.S. bases providing security and other services as military contractor employees. She spearheads their effort to collect medical coverage and disability benefits for them or loved ones of dead workers to which they’re legally entitled.

She said the legal wrangling has opened her eyes to the extremes that large corporations traverse when it comes to money wars. The companies, including the nation’s biggest carriers such as AIG and CNA, frequently deny claims and use ethically challenged legal and investigative techniques to defend their rejections, Coughlin said.

“The insurance companies make it extremely difficult,” she said last week in her office. “They have big lawyers and lots of money, but we’ve been really successful. We’ve been able to get medical treatment and disability for a number of Ugandans.”

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She has handled 55 to 60 cases, a handful involving females, with about 20 of them being resolved to date, all but one without going to trial. She hired another young attorney, Troy Green, about a year ago to help with the caseload.

The cases are disputed through a federal administrative law division within the U.S. Department of Labor. Documents are mailed to a court in New York City.

The Ugandans are covered for medical care and disability through workers compensation under the federal Defense Base Act, at a lower rate than American citizen workers.

Ugandans, more than 10,000 of them, represent a large percentage of the private contract workers that numbered up to 70,000 in Iraq at its peak in 2007 and more than 100,000 in Afghanistan last January, according to published reports.

Uganda is a popular source of workers due to the cooperation of its government and their use of English, the report says. They often work in security at American bases because, among other reasons, some of them are ex-soldiers from an old civil war. Coughlin said they are placed in the most vulnerable positions, such as at base entrances and guard towers where they are exposed to rocket blasts and gunfire, as well as IEDs when they travel.

“I’ve had clients who have had their arms or legs blown off, or who have lost their sight,” she said.“I’ve had one paralyzed on one side.”

She admits the cost can be high. Only basic medical treatment is available in Uganda.

“To get some of the specialized surgeries and treatment these guys injured in Iraq need, you have to go to another country,” she said, such as South Africa or European countries.

The Ugandans are paid hundreds of dollars per month, which is a decent salary for them. But it’s still far less than those from the United States, Europe and other more developed countries, a published report says.

When a Ugandan worker is hurt, he or she is returned to his or her home country, Coughlin said. Their pay and medical care stops. They get worse waiting for the outcome of their claim.

“A lot of these guys they come home to Africa, they’re injured, they have no money, and they’re stuck in very remote villages and just suffering without any medical treatment,” she said. “A lot of them are unaware there’s even legal help available for them.”

Many of them don’t know about the one-year statute of limitations for filing a claim, she said.

There could be hundreds of others eligible for assistant.“We feel this is probably just the tip of the iceberg of what’s out there,” she said.

Coughlin last week visited Comfort Prosthetics & Orthotics on Southbound Gratiot in Mount Clemens to view the company’s products for potentially having Ugandans travel here to be fitted for artificial arms and legs.

She also has traveled to Uganda twice to meet with clients and help build their trust in her. She has hired two Ugandans to help coordinate.

“It’s been so beneficial to meet my clients in person,” she said. “It gives me the ability to experience and judge what I saw and what they are going through.”

In the legal battle, Coughlin said she worries about underhanded tactics of foreign companies hired by the insurance companies to investigate the claims. Investigators try to trick ex-workers into abandoning their claim, she said.

“Some of the things they do are appalling,” she said.“Clients called behind our back. We’ve had clients receive death threats. We had a document forged.”

She and Green are documenting instances for a possible lawsuit, she said.“We try to develop evidence,” she said. “We’re putting together a list of the abuses that we’re seeing … and seeing what remedies we have outside the Defense Base Act.”

Coughlin’s path to representing people who live and work on the other side of the world would have seemed outlandish to her a decade ago but seems natural to her now.

She grew up in Harrison Township and attended a Christian high school in Southfield, and Wheaton College in Illinois and law school at University of Colorado in Boulder.

Her first job out of law school was at a law firm that, ironically, defended insurance companies.

She left after a couple of years and in 2003 and 2004 got involved with sending care packages to U.S. troops. She and a military chaplain formed a nonprofit organization. The chaplain asked her to send care packages to about 300 Ugandan workers at his base.

A Ugandan man told her via email in 2008 that he needed help appealing a denied claim, she said. She couldn’t find a lawyer to take the case but found a lawyer in New York to mentor her.Friends of that first client contacted her, and eventually word spread that Coughlin was the go-to person for Ugandans in need of legal help.

“The practice just took off,” she said.

Compelled by a high power, shedecided to devote her law work to the Ugandan effort.

“I just really felt God called me to do this,” she said. “It’s a feeling I had. I felt he wanted me to fill this need and speak up for these people who didn’t have a voice before.”

Her inspiration is Proverbs 31, verses 8 and 9, in the Bible, she said.

“I wear those verses on a charm,” she said.

Coughlin said she is by far the most active foreign attorney helping Ugandans.

Her efforts are part of a larger story about the use of Ugandans by U.S. military contractors that American filmmaker Dan Neumann and a German partner were hired to doument by the Berlin-based production company Filmtank. They filmed Coughlin for two days last week, including her visit to the prosthetics company.

“This is a class David vs. Goliath story,” Neumann said. “The work she does is tremendous. It was remarkable talking to her.”

The film is being made for a half-hour airing on French public TV, and Neumann said he hopes to market a 50-plus minute version for American public TV.

Neumann, who lives in Chicago, discovered Coughlin in an article called, “Cheap Help in Uganda,” in the French magazine, “Le Monde diplomatique.”

Coughlin said she is glad for the attention.

“Most Americans that I’ve talked to were completely unaware that Ugandans were serving on our bases in the Middle East,” she said. “We’re really happy to give some awareness to their plight.

“These men and women are serving our country. They’re protecting our men and women, protecting our bases and our troops. They’re risking their lives every day to do that, and for very little money.

“I can tell you they serve with honor and they really have felt it an honor to serve with the American military.”

She and Green are paid via attorney fees in the judgments, although collecting fees takes as long as resolving a case. They still manage to robustly advocate for clients.

“We have to hire experts and doctors, and get MRIs and CT scans, and everything that we need to prove our case,” she said. “The Lord above just provides month-to-month. We’ve always just had what we needed. The money comes in. We settle a few cases here and that pays for the next batch of cases.”

She supports a proposal in its early stages to turn over the insurance coverage to the federal government. She said it would save taxpayer dollars and should improve care.Currently, taxpayers pay the premiums, and insurance companies pocket the profits.Under the federal government, profits could be funneled back into the program.

About the Author

My beat is the courts of Macomb County and general assignment.
Read more of Jameson Cook's court coverage on his blog http://courthousedish.blogspot.com/ Reach the author at jamie.cook@macombdaily.com
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